It’s widely known that Hollywood star Tom Hanks has a deep and enduring love for typewriters. He owns dozens, uses them often, and even wrote a book of short stories inspired by them. And sometimes, when replying to fan mail, he’ll even include this typewritten list: a playful defence of the machine and a glimpse into what makes it so special to him. Part joke, part tribute, and unmistakably Hanks.

ELEVEN REASONS TO USE A TYPEWRITER
by Tom Hanks

1. Your penmanship is illegible. One of those legal experts would examine it for a trial and say, “Oh, he’s guilty!”

2. You are just too thickheaded to figure out a computer.

3. Your religion forbids the use of machinery invented after 1867.

4. The Communists are back in power.

5. No one chucks anything typewritten into the trash.

6. You take great pleasure in the tactile experience of typing — the sound, the physical quality of touch, the report and action of type-bell-return, the carriage, and the satisfaction of pulling a completed page out of the machine, raaapp!

7. The distraction of rolling another page into the carriage allows you to collect your thoughts.

8. You are an artist and everything you type is one-of-a-kind work. The combination of paper quality, the age of the ribbon, the minute quirks of your machine, the occasional misuse of the space bar, and the options of the margins and tabs add up to make anything you type as varied and unique as your fingerprints.

9. You keep the machine out on a table, not locked away in a closet. You have next to it a small stack of stationery and maybe some envelopes. The typewriter is ready and easy to use any time of the day.

10. You really want to bother the other customers at the coffee place.

11. Typewriter = Chick Magnet.

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Huge thanks to Shelby for sharing this list with us.

On 13th January 1737, in the pages of his Pennsylvania Gazette, the ever-industrious and mischievous Benjamin Franklin unveiled The Drinker’s Dictionary—a staggering list of 228 ways to describe being utterly inebriated, reportedly used by the fine, upstanding patrons of America’s taverns. One thing is clear: while the methods of getting drunk haven’t changed much over the centuries, our ways of describing it have sadly dwindled. Franklin’s list stands as both a linguistic time capsule and a reminder that, when it comes to alcohol, creativity has always flourished.

The Drinker’s Dictionary

A

He is Addled, He’s casting up his Accounts, He’s Afflicted, He’s in his Airs.

B

He’s Biggy, Bewitch’d, Block and Block, Boozy, Bowz’d, Been at Barbadoes, Piss’d in the Brook, Drunk as a Wheel-Barrow, Burdock’d, Buskey, Buzzey, Has Stole a Manchet out of the Brewer’s Basket, His Head is full of Bees, Has been in the Bibbing Plot, Has drank more than he has bled, He’s Bungey, As Drunk as a Beggar, He sees the Bears, He’s kiss’d black Betty, He’s had a Thump over the Head with Sampson’s Jawbone, He’s Bridgey.

C

He’s Cat, Cagrin’d, Capable, Cramp’d, Cherubimical, Cherry Merry, Wamble Crop’d, Crack’d, Concern’d, Half Way to Concord, Has taken a Chirruping-Glass, Got Corns in his Head, A Cup to much, Coguy, Copey, He’s heat his Copper, He’s Crocus, Catch’d, He cuts his Capers, He’s been in the Cellar, He’s in his Cups, Non Compos, Cock’d, Curv’d, Cut, Chipper, Chickery, Loaded his Cart, He’s been too free with the Creature, Sir Richard has taken off his Considering Cap, He’s Chap-fallen.

D

He’s Disguiz’d, He’s got a Dish, Kill’d his Dog, Took his Drops, It is a Dark Day with him, He’s a Dead Man, Has Dipp’d his Bill, He’s Dagg’d, He’s seen the Devil.

E

He’s Prince Eugene, Enter’d, Wet both Eyes, Cock Ey’d, Got the Pole Evil, Got a brass Eye, Made an Example, He’s Eat a Toad & half for Breakfast. In his Element.

F

He’s Fishey, Fox’d, Fuddled, Sore Footed, Frozen, Well in for’t, Owes no Man a Farthing, Fears no Man, Crump Footed, Been to France, Flush’d, Froze his Mouth, Fetter’d, Been to a Funeral, His Flag is out, Fuzl’d, Spoke with his Friend, Been at an Indian Feast.

G

He’s Glad, Groatable, Gold-headed, Glaiz’d, Generous, Booz’d the Gage, As Dizzy as a Goose, Been before George, Got the Gout, Had a Kick in the Guts, Been with Sir John Goa, Been at Geneva, Globular, Got the Glanders.

H

Half and Half, Hardy, Top Heavy, Got by the Head, Hiddey, Got on his little Hat, Hammerish, Loose in the Hilts, Knows not the way Home, Got the Hornson, Haunted with Evil Spirits, Has Taken Hippocrates grand Elixir.

I

He’s Intoxicated.

J

Jolly, Jagg’d, Jambled, Going to Jerusalem, Jocular, Been to Jerico, Juicy.

K

He’s a King, Clips the King’s English, Seen the French King, The King is his Cousin, Got Kib’d Heels, Knapt, Het his Kettle.

L

He’s in Liquor, Lordly, He makes Indentures with his Leggs, Well to Live, Light, Lappy, Limber.

M

He sees two Moons, Merry, Middling, Moon-Ey’d, Muddled, Seen a Flock of Moons, Maudlin, Mountous, Muddy, Rais’d his Monuments, Mellow.

N

He’s eat the Cocoa Nut, Nimptopsical, Got the Night Mare.

O

He’s Oil’d, Eat Opium, Smelt of an Onion, Oxycrocium, Overset.

P

He drank till he gave up his Half-Penny, Pidgeon Ey’d, Pungey, Priddy, As good conditioned as a Puppy, Has scalt his Head Pan, Been among the Philistines, In his Prosperity, He’s been among the Philippians, He’s contending with Pharaoh, Wasted his Paunch, He’s Polite, Eat a Pudding Bagg.

Q

He’s Quarrelsome.

R

He’s Rocky, Raddled, Rich, Religious, Lost his Rudder, Ragged, Rais’d, Been too free with Sir Richard, Like a Rat in Trouble.

S

He’s Stitch’d, Seafaring, In the Sudds, Strong, Been in the Sun, As Drunk as David’s Sow, Swampt, His Skin is full, He’s Steady, He’s Stiff, He’s burnt his Shoulder, He’s got his Top Gallant Sails out, Seen the yellow Star, As Stiff as a Ring-bolt, Half Seas over, His Shoe pinches him, Staggerish, It is Star-light with him, He carries too much Sail, Stew’d Stubb’d, Soak’d, Soft, Been too free with Sir John Strawberry, He’s right before the Wind with all his Studding Sails out, Has Sold his Senses.

T

He’s Top’d, Tongue-ty’d, Tann’d, Tipium Grove, Double Tongu’d, Topsy Turvey, Tipsey, Has Swallow’d a Tavern Token, He’s Thaw’d, He’s in a Trance, He’s Trammel’d.

V

He makes Virginia Fence, Valiant, Got the Indian Vapours.

W

The Malt is above the Water, He’s Wise, He’s Wet, He’s been to the Salt Water, He’s Water-soaken, He’s very Weary, Out of the Way.

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In 1958, a year after On the Road had electrified a generation, Jack Kerouac (born on this day in 1922) sat down and distilled his philosophy of writing into a list. It wasn’t a set of rules but a wild, freewheeling guide to living and writing with intensity, honesty, and abandon. He sent it to his friend and publisher Donald Allen, who later printed it in Evergreen Review, a literary magazine at the heart of the Beat movement. Titled Belief and Technique for Modern Prose, it reads like a manifesto, urging writers to surrender to inspiration, embrace imperfection, and write from the depths of their souls.

BELIEF AND TECHNIQUE FOR MODERN PROSE

List of Essentials

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy

2. Submissive to everything, open, listening

3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house

4. Be in love with yr life

5. Something that you feel will find its own form

6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind

7. Blow as deep as you want to blow

8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind

9. The unspeakable visions of the individual

10. No time for poetry but exactly what is

11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest

12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you

13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition

14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time

15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog

16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye

17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself

18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea

19. Accept loss forever

20. Believe in the holy contour of life

21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind

22. Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better

23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning

24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge

25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it

26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form

27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness

28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better

29. You're a Genius all the time

30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

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Excerpt from a letter to Donald Allen (1958) from Heaven and Other Poems. Copyright © 1959, 1960, 1977 by the Estate of Jack Kerouac. Reprinted in Lists of Note by permission of Sterling Lord Literistic LLC

In 1662, the scientist and philosopher Robert Boyle, a man now known as the “Father of Modern Chemistry,” sat down to write a wish list—a collection of problems he hoped science would one day solve. Some of his dreams were wildly ambitious: perpetual light, and ships that could not sink. Others were eerily prophetic, predicting advances in medicine, transplantation, and even the development of mind-altering drugs. More than 300 years later, many of Boyle’s imagined breakthroughs have become reality.

• The Prolongation of Life.1

• The Recovery of Youth, or at least some of the Marks of it, as new Teeth, new Hair colour’d as in youth.2

• The Art of Flying.3

• The Art of Continuing long under water, and exercising functions freely there.4

• The Cure of Wounds at a Distance.5

• The Cure of Diseases at a distance or at least by Transplantation.6

• The Attaining Gigantick Dimensions.7

• The Emulating of Fish without Engines by Custome and Education only.8

• The Acceleration of the Production of things out of Seed.9

• The Transmutation of Metalls.10

• The makeing of Glass Malleable.11

• The Transmutation of Species in Mineralls, Animals, and Vegetables.12

• The Liquid Alkaest and Other dissolving Menstruums.13

• The making of Parabolicall and Hyperbolicall Glasses.14

• The making Armor light and extremely hard.15

• The practicable and certain way of finding Longitudes.16

• The use of Pendulums at Sea and in Journeys, and the Application of it to watches.17

• Potent Druggs to alter or Exalt Imagination, Waking, Memory, and other functions, and appease pain, procure innocent sleep, harmless dreams, etc.18

• A Ship to saile with All Winds, and A Ship not to be Sunk.19

• Freedom from Necessity of much Sleeping exemplify’d by the Operations of Tea and what happens in Mad-Men.20

• Pleasing Dreams and physicall Exercises exemplify’d by the Egyptian Electuary and by the Fungus mentioned by the French Author.21

• Great Strength and Agility of Body exemplify’d by that of Frantick Epileptick and Hystericall persons.22

• A perpetuall Light.23

• Varnishes perfumable by Rubbing.24

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In 1955, while attempting to find a name for their hugely anticipated new car, Ford decided to approach the most unlikely of people to assist in the matter: Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Marianne Moore. Moore, who was known by the wife of one Robert Young, an employee in the car manufacturer’s marketing research department, was soon contacted by letter—she agreed to help and over the coming weeks proceeded to supply them with numerous lists of delightful names, all of which are compiled here, ordered chronologically (every word, including those in parentheses, is Moore’s own). Her final suggestion, sent to Young on December 8th, was the amazing, “Utopian Turtle-top”.

Incredibly, Ford ignored Moore’s sublime ideas. Instead, they named their new car, “Edsel”. It flopped.

• The Ford Silver Sword

• Hirundo

• Aerundo

• Hurricane Hirundo (swallow)

• Hurricane Aquila (eagle)

• Hurricane Accipter (hawk)

• The Impeccable

• Symmechromatic

• Thunderblender

• The Resilient Bullet

• Intelligent Bullet

• Bullet Cloisonné

• Bullet Lavolta

• The Intelligent Whale

• The Ford Fabergé

• The Arc-en-Ciel (the rainbow)

• Arcenciel

• Mongoose Civique

• Anticipator

• Regna Racer (couronne à couronne) sovereign to sovereign

• Aeroterre

• Fée Rapide (Aérofee, Aéro Faire, Fée Aiglette, Magi-faire) Comme Il Faire

• Tonnere Alifère (winged thunder)

• Aliforme Alifère (wing-slender, a-wing)

• Turbotorc (used as an adjective by Plymouth)

• Thunderbird Allié (Cousin Thunderbird)

• Thunder Crester

• Dearborn Diamante

• Magigravure

• Pastelogram

• Regina-Rex

• Taper Racer

• Taper Acer

• Varsity Stroke

• Angelastro

• Astranaut

• Chaparral

• Tir à l’arc (bull’s eye)

• Cresta Lark

• Triskelion (three legs running)

• Pluma Piluma (hairfine, feather-foot)

• Adante con Moto (description of a good motor?)

• Turcotinga (turqoise cotinga—the cotinga being a South-American finch or sparrow) solid indigo

• Utopian Turtle-top

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Reprinted in Lists of Note by permission of the Literary Estate of Marianne C. Moore, David Moore, Esq., Administrator. All rights reserved.

For much of her adult life, Katherine Mansfield battled tuberculosis, and in October 1922, in a final attempt to regain her health, she moved to the Gurdjieff Institute at Fontainebleau, France. Run by the mystic George Gurdjieff, the institute was austere and demanding, and Mansfield—frail, desperately ill, and surrounded by Russian-speaking followers—struggled to adapt. In the back of her notebook, above a journal entry, she compiled a list of words and phrases she needed translated into Russian—a stark and moving record of her most basic needs. Less than three months later, on 9th January 1923, she died at the age of 34.

I am cold
bring paper to light a fire
paper
cinders
wood
matches
mlame
smoke
strong
strength
light a fire
no more fire
because there is no more fire
white paper
black paper
what is the time?
It is late
It is still early
good!
I would like to speak Russian with you.

Source: The Katherine Mansfield Notebooks: Volume 2, published by Lincoln University Press in 1997.

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Born in Chelsea in 1810, Elizabeth Gaskell became one of the Victorian era’s most celebrated novelists thanks to books that included Mary Barton, North and South, and Cranford. She was also a close friend of Charlotte Brontë and wrote her first biography. In 1832, Gaskell married a Unitarian minister, William Gaskell, and together they brought up four daughters. It was with those girls in mind, and with tongue in cheek, that she wrote this list of advice.

Precepts for the Guidance of a Daughter

1. Remember Evelyn was not the first Norman King of England.

2. Wash your hands.

3. When you have washed them, hold a book in them.

4. Diminish your calves.

5. Pluck your arms.

6. Don’t have the same thing said of you that was said of Master Philip.

7. Get up early, but not too early.

8. Talk German so fast that no one can ascertain whether you speak grammatically or no.

9. Don’t gobble; it turns maidens and turkey-cocks purple.

10. Remember John Still.

11. Don’t talk like Scott and Adsheads’ about young men’s dress.

12. Forget ties and studs for one little week.

13. Don’t swear.

14. Assume the power of reading, if you have it not.

15. Hold your book right way up. N.B. you may know which is the right way by examining at what end of a page the numbers occur. Where the numbers are that is the top; to be held away from you.

16. Not to make a sequence.

17. Not to leave your room like a hay-field, of which the grass is gowns & brushes.

18. Not to take pocket-handkerchiefs for articles of virtue.

Altogether to conduct yourself as becomes the daughter of E. C. Gaskell.

Born in Kent in 1722, English poet Christopher Smart is best known, posthumously at least, for Jubilate Agno (‘Rejoice in the Lamb’), a long poem he wrote as a patient at London’s St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics. Consisting of 1200 lines in total, it’s divided into four segments wherein each line begins either with ‘Let…’ or ‘For…’, and the poem is rich with biblical references and expressions of his faith and love for God. However, one particular section stands out, and because it’s essentially an affectionate list of his cat’s best behaviours and attributes, I thought I’d share it here.

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.

For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.

For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.

For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.

For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.

For he rolls upon prank to work it in.

For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.

For this he performs in ten degrees.

For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.

For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.

For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.

For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.

For fifthly he washes himself.

For sixthly he rolls upon wash.

For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.

For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.

For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.

For tenthly he goes in quest of food.

For having consider’d God and himself he will consider his neighbour.

For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.

For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.

For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.

For when his day’s work is done his business more properly begins.

For he keeps the Lord’s watch in the night against the adversary.

For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.

For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.

For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.

For he is of the tribe of Tiger.

For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.

For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.

For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.

For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he’s a good Cat.

For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.

For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.

For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.

For every family had one cat at least in the bag.

For the English Cats are the best in Europe.

For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.

For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.

For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.

For he is tenacious of his point.

For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.

For he knows that God is his Saviour.

For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.

For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.

For he is of the Lord’s poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually—Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.

For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.

For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.

For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music.

For he is docile and can learn certain things.

For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.

For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.

For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.

For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.

For he can jump from an eminence into his master’s bosom.

For he can catch the cork and toss it again.

For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.

For the former is afraid of detection.

For the latter refuses the charge.

For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.

For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.

For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.

For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.

For his ears are so acute that they sting again.

For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.

For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.

For I perceived God’s light about him both wax and fire.

For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.

For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.

For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.

For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped.

For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.

For he can swim for life.

For he can creep.

Further reading

• Read the entire poem here

• See the original manuscript here

• Read about the poem on Wikipedia here

It wasn’t until 1841 that a person’s occupation had to be entered on the UK Census—before then, it was simply an anonymous headcount that took place each decade. Unsurprisingly, some job titles, when written down without context and presented to an outsider, sound completely ridiculous, especially when they’re jobs that existed in the 1800s, but that’s essentially what this list contains: some particularly odd-sounding occupations as declared in the Census in 1881, collated four years later in the snappily-titled The Companion to the Almanac; or Year-Book of General Information for 1885, in a chapter named The Occupations of the English People. Enjoy.

All-rounder

Barker

Bat-printer

Bandler

Bear-breaker

Beatster

Blabber

Black-picker

Block minder

Bomb setter

Branner

Brazil maker

Budget bummer

Bull-dog burner

Bullet pitcher

Busheller

Butt woman

Buttoner-up

Camberel maker

Canbreaker

Carriage straightener

Cheeker

Chevener

Chivier

Clapper carrier

Combwright

Coney cutter

Crowder

Crutter

Cullet picker

Cut looker

Cut-jack maker

Dasher

Dirt refiner

Doctor maker

Dogminder

Doler

Duler

Egger

Fagotter

Faster

Firebeater

Flatkeeper

Fluker

Footmaker

Forwarder

Gin maker

Glan rider

Grafter

Hackneyman

Hawk-boy

Horse marine

Hoveller

Idle back maker

Impression maker

Iron bolster maker

Keel-bulley

Lasher

Learman

Lurer

Maiden maker

Marbler

Moleskin shaver

Muck roller

Notchturner

Off-bearer

Oliver man

Orange raiser

Painted Front maker

Pastefitter

Patent turner

Peas maker

Piano puncher

Ponty sucker

Ransacker

Riffler maker

Sad-iron maker

Sand badger

Scratch brusher

Shore woman

Sparable cutter

Spilch dealer

Spittle maker

Spragger

Sprigger

Swift builder

Tawer

Temple maker

Tharme maker

Thimble picker

Thurler

Tingle maker

Toother

Townsman

Trowler

Walkflatter

Westerman

Wheel glutter

Whim driver

Whitster

Christopher Hitchens was a divisive journalist, author and critic who was never anything but outspoken when discussing religion, a subject that was particularly close to his heart and which he debated regularly and with passion. In 2010, in a piece written for Vanity Fair on the subject of the Ten Commandments, titled “The New Commandments”, he suggested they should be revised, updated for our times. His piece ended with these suggested replacements.

Do not condemn people on the basis of their ethnicity or color.

Do not ever use people as private property.

Despise those who use violence or the threat of it in sexual relations.

Hide your face and weep if you dare to harm a child.

Do not condemn people for their inborn nature—why would God create so many homosexuals only in order to torture and destroy them?

Be aware that you too are an animal and dependent on the web of nature, and think and act accordingly.

Do not imagine that you can escape judgment if you rob people with a false prospectus rather than with a knife.

Turn off that fucking cell phone—you can have no idea how unimportant your call is to us.

Denounce all jihadists and crusaders for what they are: psychopathic criminals with ugly delusions.

Be willing to renounce any god or any religion if any holy commandments should contradict any of the above.

Christopher Hitchens, excerpt from “The New Commandments” from Vanity Fair (April 2010). Copyright © 2010. Reprinted with permission of the Estate of Christopher Hitchens.

By 1914, theoretical physicist Albert Einstein’s marriage to his wife of 11 years, Mileva Marić, was fast deteriorating. Upon the realisation that there was no hope for their relationship on a romantic level, Einstein proposed that they remain together for the sake of their two young sons, Hans and Eduard, but only if she agree to the following list of conditions. Mileva accepted them, but to no avail. A few months later she left her husband in Berlin and moved, with their children, to Zurich. They eventually divorced in 1919, having lived apart for five years.

CONDITIONS

A. You will make sure:

1. that my clothes and laundry are kept in good order;

2. that I will receive my three meals regularly in my room;

3. that my bedroom and study are kept neat, and especially that my desk is left for my use only.

B. You will renounce all personal relations with me insofar as they are not completely necessary for social reasons. Specifically, you will forego:

1. my sitting at home with you;

2. my going out or traveling with you.

C. You will obey the following points in your relations with me:

1. you will not expect any intimacy from me, nor will you reproach me in any way;

2. you will stop talking to me if I request it;

3. you will leave my bedroom or study immediately without protest if I request it.

D. You will undertake not to belittle me in front of our children, either through words or behaviour.

In 1695, a coffee house by the name of ‘Don Saltero’s’ opened in Chelsea, London which drew crowds from far and wide not for its refreshments, but for the hundreds of intriguing objects and oddities that lined its walls, shelves and ceiling: ‘cabinets of curiosities’ filled with souvenirs from all corners of the globe that were sure to catch the attention of all who entered, collected as they were by the establishment’s owner, James Salter. On entering Don Saltero’s, visitors were handed a copy of A Catalogue of the Rarities, to be Seen at Don Saltero's Coffee-house: In Chelsea, a guide book of which 40 editions were printed over the years, all containing magnificent lists of objects such as this one.

1. A Soland goose from the north of Scotland

2. A fine large hawk

3. A piece of the sugar cane, 8 feet long

4. A curious hydrometer, or weather gage

5. The bill and craw of a pelican

6. A curious skin of a snake, six feet and a half long

7. The claws of a lobster of a surprising largeness

8. A sea fan

9. Sea weeds

10. A maucauco from the East-Indies

11. The foal of a Zebra African wild ass

12. The skeleton of a cat

13. A Chinese idol

14. The pizzle of a whale

15. The head and paws of a Greenland bear

16. A sheet of paper made of silk, 12 feet long, 4 feet and a half wide, from China

17. A string of large Romish beads

18. A petrifies child

19. A Guiney deer

20. A wooden shoe that was put under the speaker’s chair in the reign of K. James II

21. The King of Widdaw’s staff

22. The ear of an elephant

23. Pipes found in Gloucester

24. A print of the fly cap monkey

25. Ditto of a fine lizard, coloured from the life

26. Ditto of the dead warrant for the beheading of King Charles the First

27. Ditto of the Brasilian pye, or toucan, coloured from life

29. A sea horse’s pizzle, of which cramp rings are made

30. A large otter

31. A surprising horn of an urus, or buffaloe

31. The cobler’s awl, plover

32. A fine horned owl

33. A Chinese pheasant

34. Chinese instrument of wind music made of reeds

34. Two fine mussel shells, 2 foot long, from Portmahon

35. The rhinoceros’s horn

36. The model of a mill with an overshot wheel, which works with sand (as the large ones do by water) most curiously contrived, and made in a bottle: the stopper of the bottle is most wonderfully contrived in being fastened in the inside of the bottle with cross bars and spring bolts, with various things hanging to each end of every bolt, and yet so tight as not to admit of one grain of sand to escape. 

37. The horns of a West-India stag

38. A Spanish apparatus, or belt to prevent cuckoldom, commonly called a Spanish padlock

39. A Romish bishop’s crosier

40. The horn of a sea unicorn, 7 foot and a half long

41. A friar’s discipline

42. A Staffordshire almanack, in use when the Danes were in England

43. A coffin of slate for a friar’s bones, finely carved all over

44. A joint of the back bone of a whale

45. An iron bolt, shot red-hot at fort William by the rebels, 1745

46. The paws of a Russian bear

47. A large star fish

48. The paws of a seal

49. A piece of the keel of a ship eat by the worms

50. The head of a manatee, or sea-cow

51. The lance of Tow-How Sham, king of the Darien Indians, with which he killed six Spaniards, and took a tooth out of each head, and put it in his spear as a trophy of victory

52. The skin of a snake, ten feet and a half long, an excellent hydrometer

53. The foot of an elk

54. The head and tusks of a moss or sea lion

55. The head of a roe-buck from Scotland

56. The fin of a shark

57. A chopchin with which the Chinese cut their gold sympum, or Chinese board

58. A soull cap found in the hat of a French officer, when taken at the battle of Dettingen

58. The grinder of an elephant

59. The tooth of a whale

60. Bastinadoe from China

61. An Indian sword of war, always left in the field of battle by the conqueror

62. An Indian leaf of the tree palmeta, used by the natives as a fan

63. An almanack for a blind man 

64. A Moco fan

65. The head and horns of an antelope

66. The belt and pouches, shoe, and other ornaments of Tow How-Sham, king of the Darien Indians

67. A pair of Tartar lady’s shoes

68. The coronation-shoes of King William III

69. A pair of Tripoly stockings

70. A Turkish quiver for arrows

71. A pair of maucasons or shoes from Hudson’s Bay

72. A shirt of mail wore by the knights templars

73. A Chinese stocking

74. Queen Elizabeth’s stirrup

75. A Chinese boot

76. The jaws of a shark with 280 teeth

77. A scaly coat of mail

78. A pair of Turkish women’s shoes

79. A pair of Chinese women’s shoes

80. Q. Catherine’s wedding shoes, q. of Charles II

81. A pair of Turkish men’s shoes

82. A Turkish slipper

83. A pair of Chinese men’s shoes

84. A pair of Spanish lady’s shoes

85. A pair of brashalls to play at ballon, a game used in Italy

86. A curious wooden fan

87. A curious model of a church

88. A print of the maucauco, with some weeds from the gulph of Florida

89. The Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, the ten Commandments, the prayers for the king and the royal family, and the 21st psalm; all written in the bust of king George

90. A very curious triform picture of King Charles I and his two sons

91. A dried cat

92. A Turkish bow

93. The root of a tree in the shape of a hog

94. The head of a badger

95. The saw of a saw fish

96. King Henry the Eighth’s coat of mail

97. A pair of gauntlets

98. Knives of the Cannibal Indians

99. An Indian bow and arrows

100. Two javelins

101. A Negro boy’s cap made of rats skins

102. Snow shoes

103. A Chinese waistcoat, to prevent sweating

104. A Scots Highlander’s target

105. A coat made of the bark of a tree

106. A whip from Archangel

107. A Mailay’s hat

108. Queen Elizabeth’s chambermaid’s hat

109. The target of Tee-Yee-Neen-Ho-Ga-Row, Indian emperor of the Six Nations

110. Queen Elizabeth’s work-basket

111. A Bohemian hat

112. A curious print, that changes, viz. from a man to a woman

113. A moving picture of Hudibras and the conjurer

114. Ditto of the bottle-conjurer

115. Ditto of a bashful widow

116. Two young tarapins, or land turtles

117. Two fine large ostrich-eggs

118. The shell sun fish

119. The egg of an ostrich, curiously carved

120. The star-fish

121. A bucaneer’s staff

122. A Barbary spur

123. King Henry the Eighth’s spurs

124. A print of the scarlet manakin from Surinam, coloured from life

125. Two Madagascar lances

126. An Indian bow

127. A Turkish pistol

128. A pistol with four barrels, taken from the French at the siege of Namur

129. Four Indian arrows, extraordinarily bearded

130. Two ancient broad arrows of Robin Hood

131. Two small poisoned arrows with bearded points

132. Oliver Cromwell’s broad sword

133. A Spanish spadoe

134. King James’s coronation sword

135. King William’s ditto

136. A Scots dusk

137. Two poisoned daggers of great antiquity

138. A Mallay’s Creese

139. A travelling clock, which is thirty-six hours going down. N. B. In common clocks the hand goes round, and the dial keeps its place; but in this the dial goes around and the hand keeps its direction

140. A spur of state from Mexico, taken in the Acapulco ship by admiral Anson

141. The flaming sword of William the Conqueror

142. A print of the Zebra, or African wild ass, coloured from life

143. A starved cat found between the walls of Westminster-abbey when repairing

144. The horns of an antelope

145. A fine large tarapin, or land-turtle

146. An antique chissel

147. A fine East-India bow and arrows, the arrows headed with poison, to shoot birds with

148. An Indian tomohawk, taken in the field of battle before Quebec

149. Fine lace imitated in paper

150. The head of the rhinoceros bird

151. The head of the spatula bird

152. The tooth of a sea-horse

The carving of meat was considered a fine art in the late Middle Ages, at least in the affluent homes where such foods could be afforded, with whole animals routinely and precisely sliced on the dining table for all to see by household staff armed with specialist knowledge. In 1508, these rules of carving and general preparation of meat were collated by influential publisher Wynkyn de Worde in The Boke of Kervynge (The Book of Carving), a guide aimed at the staff of such households which began with a wonderful list of terms to be used when dealing with various foods.

The original can be seen above. Below is a transcript to which I’ve attempted to add some modern translations. Definitions in the footnotes are from Wikipedia. If you’re squeamish, this list may not be for you.

Termes of a keruer —Terms of a carver

Breke that dere — break that deer
lesche y brawne — leach1 the brawn2
rere that goose — rear that goose
lyft that swanne — lift that swan
sauce that capon — sauce that capon3
spoyle that henne — spoil that hen
fruche that chekyn — ? that chicken
vnbrace that malarde — unbrace that mallard
vnlace that cony — unlace that coney4
dysmembre that heron — dismember that heron
dysplaye that crane — display that crane
dysfygure that pecocke —disfigure that peacock
vnioynt that bytture — unjoint that bittern5
vntache that curlewe — untack that curlew6
alaye that fesande — allay that pheasant
wynge that partryche — wing that partridge
wynge that quayle — wing that quail
mynce that plouer — mince that plover7
thye that pegyon — thigh that pigeon
border that pasty — border that pasty
thye that wodcocke — thigh that woodock
thye all maner of small byrdes — thigh all manner of small birds
tymbre that fyre — timber that fire
tyere that egge — tear that egg
chyne that samon — chine8 that salmon
strynge that lampraye — string that lamprey9
splatte that pyke — splat that pike
sauce that playce — sauce that plaice
sauce that tenche — sauce that tench
splaye that breme — splay that bream
syde that haddocke — side that haddock
tuske that barbell — tusk that barbel
culpon that troute — culpon10 that trout
fynne that cheuen — fin that cheven11
trassene that ele — ? that eel
traunche that sturgyon — tranche12 that sturgeon
vndertraunche yt purpos — undertranch that porpoise
tayme that crabbe — tame that crab
barbe that lopster — barb that lobster

Here endeth the goodly termes.

In 1865, as the world reeled following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Leaves of Grass poet Walt Whitman began work on an elegy to mark the death of the US President, a man for whom Whitman held great admiration. As he prepared to write the mourning poem that would eventually be known as When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d, Whitman brainstormed by drawing up a list of words related to such loss.

sorrow (saxon)
grieve
sad
mourn (just)
mourning
mournful melancholy
dismal
heavy-hearted
tears
black
sobs -ing
sighing
funeral rites
wailing
lamenting
mute
grief
eloquent silence
bewail
bemoan
deplore
regret deeply
loud lament
pitiful
loud weeping
violent lamentation
anguish
wept sore
depression
pain of mind
passionate regret
afflicted with grief
cast down
downcast
gloomy
serious
sympathy
moving
compassion
tenderness
tender-hearted
full of pity
obscurity
partial or total Darkness
(as the gloom of a forest – gloom of midnight)
cloudy
cloudiness
dejection
dejected
[shades?] of night heavy
dull – sombre
sombre shades
sombreness
affliction
oppress
oppressive
oppression
prostration
humble – humility
suffering – silent suffering
burdensome
Distress – distressing
Calamity
Extreme anguish (either of mind or body)
Misery
torture
harrassed
weighed down
trouble
deep affliction
plaintive
Calamity
disaster
something that strikes down – as by Almighty

Born in 1866, Erik Satie was a French pianist known for his love of the absurd, his compositions attracting attention far and wide thanks to their offbeat, angular, jaunty nature. But his eccentricities weren’t limited to his music. In his 1913 book, Memoirs of an Amnesiac, he listed his “precise daily schedule.” It read as follows.

A MUSICIAN’S DAY

An artist must regulate his life. Here is my precise daily schedule.

I rise at 7:18, am inspired from 10:30 to 11:47.

I lunch at 12:11 and leave the table at 12:14.

A healthy horse-back ride on my property from 1:19 to 2:35.

Another round of inspiration from 3:12 to 4:07.

From 5:00 to 6:47 various occupations (fencing, reflection, immobility, visits, contemplation, dexterity, swimming, etc.).

Dinner is served at 7:16 and finished at 7:20.

Afterward from 8:09 to 9:59 symphonic readings out loud.

I go to bed regularly at 10:37. Once a week I wake up with a start at 3:14 A.M. (Tuesdays.)

I eat only white foods: eggs, sugar, shredded bones, the fat of dead animals, rice, turnips, sausages in camphor, pastry, cheese (the white varieties), cotton salad, and certain kinds of fish (skinned).

I boil my wine and drink it cold mixed with fuchsia juice. I have a good appetite but never talk when eating for fear of strangling.

I breathe carefully (a little at a time) and dance very rarely. When walking I hold my sides and look steadily behind me.

Being of serious demeanor, it is unintentional when I laugh. I always apologize very affably.

I sleep with only one eye closed; I sleep very hard. My bed is round with a hole in it for my head to go through. Every hour a servant takes my temperature and gives me another.

For a long time I have subscribed to a fashion magazine. I wear a white cap, white socks, and a white vest.

My doctor has always told me to smoke. He even explains himself: “Smoke, my friend. Otherwise someone else will smoke in your place.”

Woody Guthrie was an iconic American folk singer responsible for recording more than 400 songs during his all too brief career, the most notable being the hugely famous This Land Is Your Land in 1944. A couple of years before unveiling that one to the public, with 1943 soon to begin, Guthrie wrote and illustrated this impossibly charming list of New Year’s “Rulin’s” in his journal. 

NEW YEAR'S RULIN'S

1. WORK MORE AND BETTER
2. WORK BY A SCHEDULE
3. WASH TEETH IF ANY
4. SHAVE
5. TAKE BATH
6. EAT GOOD - FRUIT - VEGETABLES - MILK
7. DRINK VERY SCANT IF ANY
8. WRITE A SONG A DAY
9. WEAR CLEAN CLOTHES - LOOK GOOD
10. SHINE SHOES
11. CHANGE SOCKS
12. CHANGE BED CLOTHES OFTEN
13. READ LOTS GOOD BOOKS
14. LISTEN TO RADIO A LOT
15. LEARN PEOPLE BETTER
16. KEEP RANCHO CLEAN
17. DON’T GET LONESOME
18. STAY GLAD
19. KEEP HOPING MACHINE RUNNING
20. DREAM GOOD
21. BANK ALL EXTRA MONEY
22. SAVE DOUGH
23. HAVE COMPANY BUT DON’T WASTE TIME
24. SEND MARY AND KIDS MONEY
25. PLAY AND SING GOOD
26. DANCE BETTER
27. HELP WIN WAR - BEAT FASCISM
28. LOVE MAMA
29. LOVE PAPA
30. LOVE PETE
31. LOVE EVERYBODY
32. MAKE UP YOUR MIND
33. WAKE UP AND FIGHT

In 1927, at the height of the United States’ 13-year, nationwide ban on the sale and import of alcoholic beverages, one of the country’s leading literary critics, Edmund Wilson, compiled and published a list that he titled, The Lexicon of Prohibition. It was a list of terms for drunkenness, arranged, he explained, “in order of the degrees of intensity of the conditions which they represent, beginning with the mildest stages and progressing to the more serious,” and it read as follows.

• lit

• squiffy

• oiled

• lubricated

• owled

• edged

• jingled

• piffed

• piped

• sloppy

• woozy

• happy

• half screwed

• half cooked

• half shot

• half seas over

• fried

• stewed

• boiled

• bent

• sprung

• scrooched

• jazzed

• jagged

• canned

• corked

• corned

• potted

• hooted

• slopped

• tanked

• tight

• full

• wet

• high

• horseback

• liquored

• pickled

• ginned

• shicker (Yiddish)

• spifflicated

• primed

• organized

• featured

• pie-eyed

• cock-eyed

• wall-eyed

• glassy-eyed

• bleary-eyed

• hoary-eyed

• over the Bay

• four sheets in the wind

• crocked

• loaded

• leaping

• screeching

• lathered

• plastered

• soused

• bloated

• polluted

• saturated

• stinko

• blind

• stiff

• under the table

• wapsed down

• paralyzed

• ossifed

• out like a light

• passed out cold

• embalmed

• buried

• blotto

• lit up like the sky

• sit up like the commonwealth

• lit up like a Christmas tree

• lit up like a store window

• lit up like a church

• fried to the hat

• slopped to the ears

• stewed to the gills

• boiled as an owl

• full as a tick

• loaded for bear

• loaded to the muzzle

• loaded to the plimsoll mark

• to have a bun on

• to have a slant on

• to have a skate on

• to have a snootfull

• to have a skinful

• to draw a blank

• to pull a shut-eye

• to pull a Daniel Boone

• to have a rubber drink

• to have a hangover

• to have a head

• to have the jumps to have the shakes

• to have the zings

• to have the heeby-jeebies

• to have the screaming-meemies

• to have the whoops and jingles

• to burn with a low blue flame

Extracted from Lists of Note, edited by Shaun Usher. Originally from American Earthquake: A Documentary of the Twenties and Thirties. Copyright © 1958 by Edmund Wilson. Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House.

Established by Joseph Robins in 1824, The Ladies’ Pocket Magazine was one of few publications to cater for women of the Georgian era—a small, monthly magazine filled with stories, readers’ letters, etiquette guides, and fashion. In the first issue of 1830, sandwiched between a piece called “Effects of Beauty” and another titled “The Ladies’ Toilet”, was printed this list of “Advice to young ladies.”

ADVICE TO YOUNG LADIES

If you have blue eyes, you need not languish.

If black eyes, you need not leer.

If you have pretty feet, there is no occasion to wear short petticoats.

If you are doubtful as to that point, there can be no harm in letting them be long.

If you have good teeth, do not laugh for the purpose of shewing them.

If you have bad ones, do not laugh less than the occasion may justify.

If you have pretty hands and arms, there can be no objection to your playing on the harp, if you play well.

If they are disposed to be clumsy, work tapestry.

If you have a bad voice, rather speak in a low tone.

If you dance well, dance but seldom.

If you dance ill, never dance at all.

If you sing well, make no previous excuses.

If you sing indifferently, hesitate not a moment when you are asked, for few people are judges of singing, but every one is sensible of a desire to please.

If you would preserve beauty, rise early.

If you would preserve esteem, be gentle.

If you would obtain power, be condescending.

If you would live happily, endeavour to promote the happiness of others.

It was in 1949 that Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner made their debut in Fast and Furry-ous, the first of fifty Looney Tunes cartoons in which the now-iconic due would ultimately appear. Half a century later, in his 1999 book, Chuck Amuck: the Life and Times of the Animated Cartoonist, legendary animator Chuck Jones, who co-created the duo, shared “some of the rules [he and his team] obeyed” when bringing them to the screen. The list read as follows.

RULE 1. THE ROAD RUNNER CANNOT HARM THE COYOTE EXCEPT BY GOING “BEEP-BEEP!”

RULE 2. NO OUTSIDE FORCE CAN HARM THE COYOTE—ONLY HIS OWN INEPTITUDE OR THE FAILURE OF THE ACME PRODUCTS.

RULE 3. THE COYOTE COULD STOP ANYTIME—IF HE WERE NOT A FANATIC. (REPEAT: “A FANATIC IS ONE WHO REDOUBLES HIS EFFORT WHEN HE HAS FORGOTTEN HIS AIM.”—GEORGE SANTAYANA.)

RULE 4. NO DIALOGUE EVER, EXCEPT “BEEP-BEEP!”

RULE 5. THE ROAD RUNNER MUST STAY ON THE ROAD—OTHERWISE, LOGICALLY, HE WOULD NOT BE CALLED ROAD RUNNER.

RULE 6. ALL ACTION MUST BE CONFINED TO THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT OF THE TWO CHARACTERS—THE SOUTHWEST AMERICAN DESERT.

RULE 7. ALL MATERIALS, TOOLS, WEAPONS, OR MECHANICAL CONVENIENCES MUST BE OBTAINED FROM THE ACME CORPORATION.

RULE 8. WHENEVER POSSIBLE, MAKE GRAVITY THE COYOTE’S GREATEST ENEMY.

RULE 9. THE COYOTE IS ALWAYS MORE HUMILIATED THAN HARMED BY HIS FAILURES.

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